A recent report by Dealroom ranked Glasgow as the second fastest-growing metro area in the UK by VC funding raised. Another, the Glasgow Ecosystem Report, placed the city’s startups third for growth based on VC investment (behind only Manchester and Birmingham).
Glasgow’s local government has continuously prioritised the tech sector, most recently in its Glasgow Economic Strategy report. Its education system, anchored on the University of Strathclyde and the University of Glasgow, increasingly fosters entrepreneurship, with more than 100 spinouts coming out of its universities.
Here, we highlight nine world-class technology companies that are raising standards not just in the UK, but in Europe and beyond.
TOP TECH COMPANIES:
INISOFT
The software development company specialises in contact centre solutions and its flagship product, Syntelate XA, is designed to bring data collected through voice, web chat, WhatsApp, social media messaging, email and SMS into one single platform. It also equips agents with the messaging and information they need to answer queries.
AUTOREK
Originally founded as Oasys Technology in 1994, this fintech company specialises in automated reconciliation software. Over the past 30 years, it has built a portfolio of more than 100 clients in the financial industry sector and handled more than 2.4 billion transactions.
Today, it employs more than 130 employees across its offices in Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and New York. Little wonder that it’s an award-winning Scottish enterprise, most recently claiming the Regtech Innovation award at the Scottish Fintech Awards.
FIREFISH SOFTWARE
What makes the Scottish company a leader in its field is how many of its workflows are customised for recruitment, right out of the box. While one might be able to create those workflows in other CRM platforms, chances are it would take an unreasonable (and cost-prohibitive) amount of work hours, getting help from a consultancy firm and all that without the certainty of the final result being just as good. Why take the chance?
With all this, it’s no wonder that the company is used by more than 500 recruitment agencies across 25 countries. And we are one of them!
KRUCIAL
Collecting that data is a job IoT sensors have become increasingly good at. But making that data readily available is a connectivity challenge, and achieving connectivity in the sea comes with its own set of environmental obstacles. Krucial addresses these challenges by utilising dual satellite and cellular technology, which in turn helps ensure uptime and prevent data loss.
Krucial is deploying its connectivity platform across a number of industries, including agriculture, utilities and the energy sector. And it’s not just sticking to the United Kingdom. Co-founder Kevin Quillien recently announced a partnership that will see it digitise farming operations in Australia. The tech startup is quickly making a name for itself and given how important the food production, utilities and energy sectors will be in curbing climate change, we will be watching its progress intently.
IES
The company leverages data science to provide customers with the software they need to model, analyse and measure the climate output of their construction projects. Among other capabilities, it integrates with IoT sensors as well as utility and building management systems that typically measure a myriad of data points, collating all that data and serving it in virtual environments that customers can utilise for better decision-making.
ARIDHIA
This software development company has specialised in digital research environments, a SaaS field that sits at the intersection of project management, biological research and cloud.
Its products enable organisations to collaborate on healthcare research projects from one centralised platform, designed with access rights and privacy in mind, and with analytical and publishing features built in that are meant to make the life of researchers simpler.
During the Pandemic, that’s exactly what they did. The company was behind Workbench, a tool that essentially enabled members of the International Covid-19 Data Alliance (ICODA) to work together in real time.
ALTIA
The company has even leaned into app development with its Verinote solution, a mobile app that allows users to capture images, record text (including voice-to-text), create voice recordings and securely store all of that sensitive information in a central repository that can be accessed by others. Simultaneously, it’s capable of recording the time and location of each data entry, which is particularly helpful when that data needs to be presented as evidence (say, in court).
ALBA ORBITAL
The company has been around for more than a decade and has established itself as a leader in the business of manufacturing mini-satellites. And having them sent to space.
Tom Walkinshaw, the Founder of Alba Orbital, launched his version of PocketQubes through a Kickstarter campaign, which turned out to be the first step in a journey that, more recently, saw his company secure $3.4m in funding.
And there’s a lot to be excited about. SpaceX has open possibilities in the space industry that have gotten investors excited while inspiring a new generation of inventors, researchers and entrepreneurs. You could say that companies like Alba Orbital are not only well positioned to capitalise on that excitement but, also, adding their own rocket fuel to the fire.
VECTOR PHOTONICS
The Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde received £4.7m in funding to further accelerate the development of the industry in the region.
Perhaps it’s no wonder then, that the next entry on this article, Vector Photonics is actually a spinout from the University of Glasgow.
Launched in 2012, the company laid its claim to fame by creating PCSEL-based semiconductor lasers, a particularly powerful technology that, among other benefits, reduces the latency, costs and power consumption associated with operating its lasers. This combination means Vector Photonics’ offering is particularly appealing to data centres, a sector that can benefit from all those qualities when handling increasing volumes of data at increasingly higher speeds.
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